Bugs Everywhere

Oh, the irony. Today was finally a warm, beautiful day with bugs everywhere, and I only had half an hour to look for them. I normally spend about an hour outside on my bug walks, but on a day with so many bugs around I would spend 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Alas, alas. I saw my first butterfly of the season (no picture, didn't even see it well enough to know what it was), a bee fly, which is one of the cutest insects, and I usually only see maybe two in any given springtime (no picture), a LOT of bees (no good pictures), and so very many things flying around (no pictures, but oh, there were SO MANY bugs flying around!). It was both wonderful and frustrating at the same time. Then I went to a concert that lasted about an hour, and by the time I got home it was raining.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Moth

Finally, the bees have noticed that there are flowers in bloom! They were all over the last 2 crocuses and the bunch of daffodils in the backyard that is blooming. They mostly moved too fast for pictures, but I got a couple:

And finally, the bees have noticed the profusion of creeping myrtle blooms in the rock garden! There were bees zooming all over. Those bees were also in too much of a hurry to pause pictures. I don't know how they have time to feed on any nectar:

 

 Stink bug

 Firefly on forsythia

 There are lots of bugs around now, so of course some of them have to be insectivorious predators, like this assassin bug.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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As I said, there were a lot of insects flying around today, various species, but in particular a lot of gnats. This picture is a pretty great illustration of the day:

I did see quite a few jumping spiders, but since I took so many pictures of them yesterday, and I had such a limited amount of time to be out with my camera, this is the only one today.

I think this is a new species of spider for me.